Grave Truths
by Sajjas
Summary: A small group of survivors finds itself toyed with by a mysterious being. Will they ever find out what's happened? My first story, reviews/comments appreciated!
1. First Night

Disclaimer: Valve-owned characters are Louis, Zoey, Francis, and Bill; all basic infected types (Hunter, Smoker, Boomer, Tank, Witch) are Valve-owned as well. I suppose the concept of the Director is Valve's, as well, but I like to think I took it to interesting places. Everything else is mine.

Chapter One—First night

After the survivors' horrifyingly close escape from the grotesquely-muscled tank, everyone was too tired to make small talk, sprawling out on the cold concrete roof and letting the darkness claim them. Bill, however, dragged himself laboriously into a sitting position. He couldn't let himself wind down quite yet-- he knew that his dreams would be laced with cars flying through the air like kites, smashing his bones. His bladder just wasn't prepared for these kinds of shocks any more, so he lit up a cigarette and leaned out over the edge of the roof. Softly, he began the external monologue that had seen him through two hot wars and a cold one. "Zombies. Real. Flesh-and-very-bloody zombies. _Strange_ zombies, as well. Something new. Something _changed_."

He gave a small, helpless laugh, but choked it off before it turned to sobs. He'd killed his wife and children today as they ravened for his blood. "No, focus. Here, now. Sights seen include one helicopter, civilian make, possibly a news helo. 'Copter was last seen heading west before Louis set off the car alarm. That... thing made him do it. What was it? Whatever it was, it leaped like a gazelle, or a hunting panther. Other items of interest include the creature with a grapnel for a tongue. That one appeared to be surrounded by a cloud of smoke."

His bladder was really demanding his attention now, so he wandered over behind the air conditioning unit and unzipped his pants. "Ahhhhh..." The cigarette dangled from his lower lip, forgotten in the momentary bliss of emptiness. He felt the bone-weariness settling in on him then, so he trudged back to the tarp that the rest of his companions slumbered under.

"God damn it. What'd we do to deserve this?" He grumbled as he lowered his aching body to the roof. He could just faintly hear the tank stomping off into the distance, its frustrated growls and jabbers echoing off the walls surrounding them. On the next breath, the cigarette finally detached from his lip and fell unnoticed into his lap as he began to fall asleep. He started, suppressing a gasp that might wake the others, and swatted the burning ember out of his crotch. "Nothing's gone right today," he mumbled as he finally sank into oblivion.

As the survivors slumbered, a hazy figure coalesced out of the smoke and mist surrounding the roof, seeming to hover effortlessly in midair. _I'll take these_, it seemed to project, and it deftly picked the weapons from the survivors' bodies, leaving them a single holstered 9mm pistol between them. It unslung a cylindrical shape from 'behind' itself, and bundled the powerful firearms inside, stopping to scatter a handful of ammunition clips on the table beside the sleeping figures. _Wouldn't want you to be getting relaxed_. Its eyes shone a fierce white as the moon peeked in through the clouds, but when the shadows crept in once more, the figure had gone.

High over the city, several of the figures met in conference. None had any sort of distinguishing features, and really, the only indication of their presence was a haze occluding the stars behind them. If they had spoken, it might have gone like this: _Greetings/salutations to you/all. We/I_ _are still/currently in accord/agreement/harmony as to my/our plan/campaign of action/adventure/horror? Excellent. _

The figures entwined in a mysterious fashion, then each gave updates to the overall plan._ Item one: The population in several locales/areas/cities has been successfully converted/changed/bent to mindless/ceaseless hunger/need for flesh/organs, most specifically the brain/matrix. Indeed. Individuals? A standard mix of males/protrusions and females/receptors, contained in a random/algorithmic/set pattern across the desired areas. These acts were deliberate/purposeful, to intrigue/deceive/perplex the hated/despised/needed Watchers/Spectators. Item Two: Every nineteen seconds, plus/minus two raised to the third power, an empowered/special individual/creature will be created/spawned/ghosted with the power of thought and corresponding/random ability/power/talent. _A hubbub broke out between the figures, swiftly curtailed.

_Be mindful. We/I knew well my/our purpose in this venture/operation in/from the start/beginning. If caught by the Watchers/Spectators, Judgment/Condemnation/Sentencing will be issued for the crime/heresy of creating intelligent life/beings/persons without their consent._ With that last thought, the figures disengaged and streaked in different directions.


	2. First Day

Chapter Two—First day

Bill woke first, the dawn's rays irritating him enough to realize that a reassuring weight on his chest was missing. He bolted upright, gasping loud enough to stir Zoey, and looked around frantically. She blearily looked around, her gaze sharpening as his distress became apparent.

"What's wrong, Bill?" she asked.

"My rifle's gone," he answered without looking at her, slowly scanning the rooftop for any sign of his weapon. Her eyes widened. "Oh shit."

"No kidding. How 'bout you?" Satisfied that his gun was nowhere in sight, Bill gave a deep sigh and cast his gaze heavenward.

"I'm se--" Zoey patted her pistol hilts, or rather, the place where her pistol hilts had rested, and went white. "T—th--they're gone!" she managed to stammer.

Bill continued staring up at the sky. "So that's the way it's going to be, huh? All that faith that You had a Plan, that Heaven awaited us as long as we were good? Huh? What now, God?" He was on his feet, yelling, without being aware of how he'd gotten there. "We work so _hard_, every day, and you think we've come too far and just wipe us out! Level the playing field again, bucko, the humans are getting _feisty_."

Now the sobs came, as Bill crumpled back down. He'd woken Louis and Francis, who stared open-mouthed at the man who'd held them together this far. Zoey reached out a hand to Bill, but pulled back. They retreated to another corner of the roof, giving Bill his privacy and trying to take stock. Zoey was the first to speak. "Uh, guys? Have either of you still got a g- a gun?" Francis shook his head, but Louis produced his Uzi from under his shirt and gave a reckless grin. "Yeah, I got mine. This baby seen me through all kinds of hard times, and she ain't let me down yet!"

"Lucky bastard," Francis responded, "Mine got spooked in the middle of the night, I guess. Unless you've got it, nigger."

Louis's mouth dropped open again, then he tossed the gun aside and swung at Francis, a haymaker right hook that lifted him fully off the ground and sent him flying. The uzi made a _click-ratatTAT_ noise and sparks flew off a window frame down the street, causing everyone to duck involuntarily and making Bill pause in his sobbing. Louis was on top of Francis, alternating rights and lefts straight to the face, and Francis wasn't even bothering to block anymore, just moaning and desperately trying to buck Louis off. Bill and Zoey hurried to drag the incoherent black man off of Francis before he killed him. After they'd got him pinned to the wall, Bill slapped him in the face. "Louis! Cut it out. He was just being an ass."

"No," coughed Francis, still prone. He turned his head to the side and spat blood out. "I meant it. He probably stole our weapons in the middle of the night. You can't trust him!"

"What? Are you crazy? Like I'd steal a crazy redneck's _gun_ in the middle of the night surrounded by Hundreds! Of! ZOMBIES! Shit, man, you've got more practice with that than anybody here, except maybe Bill here. Y'know why not? Because he's been in a _war_, asshole. Don't take it out on me because I hung onto my gun when you didn't. Turn that shit right back around, because I wont have any of it. Choice time, right now: The motherlovin' redneck goes, or I go." Louis had a deadly gleam in his eye.

Zoey jumped in to defuse the situation. "Guys, calm down. We just spent a rough night on a cold rooftop, and were woken by not having enough firearms to go around. Naturally we're going to be a little upset. That is _no call_ to freak out and call people nasty things," shooting Francis a malevolent glare, "but," turning to Louis, "You've really got to get ahold of that temper. Use it for beating Hell out of these zombies if you want, but don't make us use bandages if we don't have to. Who knows when we'll find more? I mean, you could kill each other, but then we'll all die, eaten by zombies!"

Francis and Louis glared at each other for a few more seconds, and then Francis backed down. "My bad."

"Damn straight! But you know what? I forgive you. You an asshole, but we got to stick together." The two smiled at each other humorlessly, uneasy truce forged.

Bill had kicked the holstered pistol, and picked it up. He retrieved the Uzi while Francis and Louis made friends, and brought them over to the group. "Bad news, folks. We've got two guns for four people. Louis, I believe this is yours, and this pistol's up for grabs." Louis took the proffered weapon and thanked Bill, wandering over to the table to field-strip it and check ammo counts. Bill turned back to Zoey and Francis. "My plan right now is decide who gets the pistol, then the other two will load up on all that ammo there, passing extra clips as they're needed. Looks like we've got some shotgun shells, some 8.12mm NATO rounds, and a whole mess of 9mm pistol clips."

"Wait, what are NATO rounds?" Francis asked, his face a mask of confusion.

"They're assault rifle rounds, designed to work with a variety of sub-and-full machine guns. Hey Louis! Does your Uzi load these bad boys?" He chucked a clip over, which Louis caught and slapped into his reassembled weapon, seating it with a firm blow. "Looks like!"

Bill grunted, pleased. "Looks like we won't be running low on ammunition, then."

The three commenced the age-old ritual of rock-paper-scissors, that being the fairest method any of them could come up with. Zoey won (paper to the others' rocks), so she got the pistol. Luckily, it felt like the same type that she'd wielded so effortlessly yesterday. She took aim at a Coke can left thoughtlessly on a windowsill, murmured "one shot," and blew a hole-- in the wall a foot to the left of the can. Her face flooded with heat, and she didn't turn round, but she could hear Francis snickering. She got a little satisfaction when she heard him yelp "Ow!", Bill muttering "Don't be an ass, Francis." She carefully drew another bead on the coke can, and this shot flipped the can end-for-end and out of sight. She relaxed and belted the holster low around her right thigh, slipping the pistol in and adjusting it unconsciously so it wouldn't chafe. "Hard to believe I hadn't touched a gun two weeks ago," she said, turning back to the guys. "Now look at me."

"Hey babe, I'll look anytime!" crowed Francis, and yelped as Bill's hand caught him upside the head again. "Don't be an ass, Francis." She grinned inwardly. That phrase was probably going to get old _fast_.

Zoey and Louis made sure that their guns were both fully loaded while Bill and Francis set about loading their pockets with ammunition. When everyone seemed ready, if a little nervous, Bill waved Louis and Zoey over to the door marked "Roof Access." They spared one last look at the sun peeking through the omnipresent cloud cover, then slowly opened the door.

_Crrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiik._


	3. Down and out

Chapter 3-- Down and out.

Everyone tensed as the door ground open. It must not have been oiled in months, even before the zombie outbreak had hit so. They heard the now-familiar breathy growls of common infected downstairs, and flicked on her flashlight to pierce the gloom. A zombie came barreling up the stairs, startling her, but Louis calmly let fly a burst from his uzi, putting six bullets in its head and chest. The foursome moved hesitantly into the building, Bill shutting the door behind them with another hideous creak-and-BOOM. The fluorescents in the building were out (of course), but enough muted sunlight was seeping in through the windows that no one felt the need to flick on the flashlights they all carried.

They scoured the entire top floor clean of zombies one room at a time, with Zoey leading pistol-first and Louis supporting. Bill and Francis tagged along, rifling drawers and closets for weaponry but coming up empty. After becoming certain that they'd cleared the top floor, they approached the closed door to the next set of stairs. At once a muffled fit of coughing erupted to their left, and Bill mouthed to the others, _Smoker_.

Zoey passed him the pistol and he aimed at the coughing and wheezing, and shot through the wall twice. A muffled _poof _sounded and the coughing stopped. He passed the pistol back to Zoey, and they cautiously made their way down a level. The first room had a working TV! Zoey and Louis swept the room for zombies, then circled out through the hallway to gun down a few more of the infected nearby. While Bill and Francis played with the television set and attempted to find something, anything besides the pervasive static, Zoey and Louis talked. "I still can't get over how _fast_ they all are. They were people! Living, laughing, loving people, people of all kinds, and now they're just...gone. All sucked out, and left with shadows and nightmares." Two zombies crashed through a door and ran at them, arms outstretched. Zoey dropped both with shots to the head, and Louis looked on approvingly. "I hear you. All these people were different, and now they're the same." They moved carefully back to Bill and Francis, making sure not to bump anything too much.

Francis had gotten the TV to display a picture, but it was horrifying. It seemed a still image, at first; a news room, with the anchors slumped over face down in pools of blood. Nothing moved. Finally Bill murmured, "Shut it off," and Francis complied. The four survivors moved carefully through the rest of the second floor until they encountered a massive hole in the floor, stretching wall to wall. Bill muttered, "uh-oh." and looked around the group before lowering himself into the hole. He fell to arm's length, then fell all the way to the floor. "Easy fall,"he said to the others. Zoey leaped down, catlike, beside him and Francis joined the two. Louis was about to join the group when the coughing began abruptly again behind him.

He rushed forward and started to fall, but a cold and slimy tongue had wrapped around his chest and was pulling him backwards, out of his startled compatriots' view. He struggled and almost dislodged one coil, but the smoker's tongue was already tightening around his chest, preventing him from crying for help. He was dragged helplessly backwards, just like yesterday, and there was _nothing he could do_. Hot tears sprang to his eyes at the unfairness of it all, but the claws that descended on his sides didn't tear, they just...stroked? He spun around inside the suddenly slack grip of the smoker's tongue and delivered a quick jab to its repulsive face. This Smoker was a woman, with what had been soft curves and a jogging suit, and her eyes held a faint spark of shock that he'd hit her. He smiled grimly. "More where that came from, you freak." He raised his fists threateningly, and the smoker cowered. He paused. This didn't seem like normal behavior from a terrifying infected zombie thing bent on destroying civilizations and eating brains. It seemed almost human. He couldn't quite bring himself to kill it, even though he knew he probably should.

He shoved the Smoker hard into the bathroom, slamming the door in its face. Then he ran back to the hole and leaped in, landing and stumbling, but Francis caught him.

"You alright, Louis?" Francis' grating voice snapped him back to reality.

"Yeah, I'm alright." They crept around the bottom floor of the apartment complex until Louis hit the jackpot. "Guys, check this out!" He'd stumbled upon a red can full of gasoline. In the next room, Francis found a working refrigerator, and wonder of wonders, a half-full case of beer. They emptied the bottles, then filled them with gasoline and stuffed rags in the mouths. Some of the gas slopped out of the bottles as they were filled, but no one minded. There were more important things to worry about. Francis felt a little safer with something to throw. Thus armed, the four stepped out of the building and into an alley that would take them out to the street.


	4. Sidestep: Infected Class R

A new character enters the ring! This one is original, and may just be the main character in this story.

Joanna woke with a start. Her eyes hurt, and her throat itched abominably. She coughed, trying to assuage the tickle, but to no avail. Her dorm room seemed a little blurred, with different overtones. Hadn't the walls been white concrete when she went to sleep? Everything was hazed over in blues now, with her running laptop glowing redly on the desk. Odd.

She stood up and went to the door, intending to go drink some water, but stopped in shock when her hand reached out for the doorknob. There was a hideous beast right behind her, to have claws like that so close. She froze, and the claw froze as well. Eventually she had to breathe again, and almost collapsed as a fit of coughing and hacking stormed through her. The claw had assumed position right in front of her face, blocking her exhalations just like ...she...would...have... she wriggled her fingers. The claw's digits wagged back at her mockingly. _Oh shit._ She tried to grasp the doorknob _gotta find a mirror gotta look oh god oh god_ but her claws could no longer curl correctly. Feeling scared and terribly alone, she began to pound on the wooden door, her claws knocking chips from the wood. A mournful cry burst from her lips, an hoarse, alien sound that shocked her and made her redouble her efforts to get out. Eventually, the door gave way and she shambled into the hallway. The lights were flickering on and off, but that didn't seem to prevent the strange blue and red glows from registering-- was she seeing in infrared? _Cool._ For just a second, she was distracted by the fresh knowledge, and then the triphammer shock of the next question hit: _Am I even human?_

She tried to run to the bathroom, but her joints weren't flexing as far-- her body felt restrictive, bent somehow into something uncomfortably new. She settled for a sliding sort of step-hop, and stumbled down the corridor to the communal bathroom. As soon as she reached a mirror, she stopped and stared and stared and stared. _Oh_...

She was hideous. The right side of her face was a mass of bubbled skin, like she'd been horribly burned. The left side of her face seemed quite normal compared to that, with only a slight pallor to the cheek. She coughed again, and felt something shift in the recesses of her throat. _Finally. Phlegm sucks. _She burst into more hacking and coughing, then something _moved?_ and swelled up, launching itself up her esophagus and out her mouth, shattering the mirror and punching a six-inch hole in the concrete. Even worse, it _hurt_ when it hit.

_Is that _my _tongue?_ She brought her claws up, careful of the edges, and examined the several feet of muscle protruding from her mouth. _Actually, now my throat doesn't hurt. Maybe because it doesn't have a tongue like a bullwhip stuffed in it._ She found that she could breathe around the monstrosity lodged in her windpipe, and "stepped out" of her consciousness for a minute. _Oh god oh god what am I? What is this, this _thing_ in my mouth and why does it feel good to throw it out like that?!_ She teetered, but her aching eyes refused to tear. _Maybe my tear ducts are shot_.

This thought turned her abrupt slide into laughter, but it shortly trailed off. Her stomach rumbled. _Huh. Breakfast time, I guess. How do I... let's not even go there _yet. She tried to stuff the rest of the tongue back in her throat, but it went slack and slithered limply out. Finally, her throat was clear! She stepped out of the bathroom and finally took stock of the corridor. Several of the doors were broken down from inside like hers had been, and some were broken in from outside. She limped to the edge of one of these doors and peered inside.

Her face drained of what little color it had, and she almost collapsed. _That's... that's a lot...of blood._ A figure lay curled on the floor, chest gently rising and falling. It had blood on its lips. The room, in fact, was painted with it-- an arm and part of a chest cavity lay on the bed, and the other half had obviously been part of the creature's meal. It _looked_ like a human... "Hey!" she said. It came out scratchy and hoarse, but it sounded like English to her. The sleeping thing snapped to alertness, then clumsily stood up. It wavered there, looking at nothing, then abruptly spun and looked at her. It crouched into an attack stance, yelled something, and charged her, hands curled into fists and mouth open to bite. She jumped back out of the door, and it ran straight out the door and into the wall.

She suppressed a chuckle, which turned into a cough. _Damn, that tickle is back._ The bloodstained creature howled, and ran at her again. She brought her hands up reflexively to block, and her claws bit deeply into the thing's wrists. It staggered in shock, bleeding profusely, and then flopped down like a marionette whose strings have been severed. _I I I I killed it! Oh god, I killed someone? Oh no! I didn't mean to honest I was so scared_ a low growl caught her attention. She turned, unconsciously dropping her center of gravity-- that deep of a growl meant a fairly big dog. ...But it wasn't a dog, it was a person in a hooded sweatshirt, down on hands and knees, for all the world looking like a wolf poised to spring. She'd had a friend down the hall, Galina, who'd always worn sweatshirts...

"Galina?" she asked, tentatively. The growling stopped momentarily, then resumed. It started winding higher, building to a peak. "Galina, what's wrong?" Joann tried to keep talking, but another coughing fit broke out as her body recognized what her mind refused to. The Hunter leaped, roaring, but Joanna's tongue was already lashing out, whipping around the leaping figure and pulling tight. The roar turned into a yelp of pain and fear, then something went _crack_ and the struggling figure stopped. Once again, the extruded tongue slithered wetly out Joanna's mouth.

_I have to get out of here_,_ I have to, I have to go, get out, I have to,_ was all she thought. She limped away, down the hall and the stairs, taking them as quickly as her unfamiliar body would allow. She was on autopilot, with the smoker's instincts carrying her. She wanted away from that place, anything to get away. Her subconscious knew what her reaction to her stomach's demands would be. She'd looked at the blood, and the torn flesh, and been hungry.


	5. Fear and loathing and safety

Now, back to the survivors!

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They'd taken care of the zombies in the street easily enough; they'd just shot several and waited for the whole horde to come rushing, then thrown a Molotov cocktail and retreated posthaste. Soon the alley mouth was filled with writhing, burning undead. Then it was full of smoldering dead bodies. Zoey held her nose as they sidled past the heap. Out in the street, Zoey and Bill paired off, sweeping into a storefront while Francis and Louis waited outside. The sun loitered near the horizon, coloring the sky orange and pink. Louis took a moment to savor the sunset. "Red sky at night, sailor's delight."

Francis doggedly swept the street for weapons and lucked out-- a Glock 9mm had just been left on a bus bench! He snatched it up, racking back the slide and popping the clip, then fervently praised the Lord; he had a full magazine. He ran back to Louis, displaying his prize. "What'd you-- Oh. ...We gonna have a prob—Look out!" Louis through dismay to alarm in a half-second, raising his Uzi to firing position and waving Francis down. Francis dove for asphalt. The Uzi burped overhead, slicing through the clawed arm slashing the air where Francis had been and piercing the chest of the hooded Hunter, flinging it head-over-heels into a limp sprawl. Francis eyed Louis with grudging appreciation. "Uh...thanks."

Louis smiled. "No problem." He offered his hand, but Francis waved him off and got up. The two quickly looked over their surroundings again just in case another zombie was attempting a sneak attack, but it was clear.

Inside the store, Zoey and Bill were busy shoveling cans of food, bags of candy, and bottles alcohol into a couple backpacks they'd found. They cleaned out several shelves, and then stuffed their pockets full of ibuprofen and other pain meds. They walked back out of the store and handed backpacks to Louis and Francis. "Holy shit, these are heavy. What'd you guys find, lead bars?"

Bill rolled his eyes. "No, Francis, we found dinner. Can it and let's go. We've got to find shelter before nightfall."

"Well, we've got another gun to defend ourselves!" Francis proudly displayed his new acquisition. Zoey and Bill both flicked a glance at Louis, who shrugged. Francis flushed, and opened his mouth to start yelling, but Bill simply said, "Excellent. You and Zoey cover flanks, I'll take point. Louis has the rear and support fire." Everyone nodded, mostly familiar with this routine. They headed across the street, fetching up in a small alcove. Across the street was a burning oil tanker, bleeding dense smoke into the air. Bill peeked around the corner and pulled back, white in the face. "That's... a lot of zombies."

They all took a turn looking around the corner and goggling at the sheer number of zombies in the street ahead of them. Corner to corner, wall to wall, a shuffling, roiling mass of undead flesh seethed. "How do we get past _that_?" Louis asked. Nobody had an answer. They backed into another shattered window and took stock. Bill chipped in first. "I make it anywhere from one to six thousand zombies in the street over there. We have four Molotov cocktails left. Options?"

"Well, there were some doors we didn't open back behind us, any one of which might lead to some safe place we can spend the night." Francis was the first with an idea, for once. The others were slightly taken aback. "What? I've been paying attention! That's what you guys always say when we've gotten blocked by rubble or fire, so why not for zombies?" He got a clap on the back from Bill. "Nice work. Backtrack time, people. Keep quiet." They crept back around the corner and started testing doors. One set of fire stairs later, they found an emergency exit door swinging in the breeze. Louis dove in first, yelling to attract the attention of any zombies in the room.

Unfortunately, the zombie in the room had been abruptly woken by a tremendous weight hitting it as Louis landed on it. It roared and scratched as Louis yelped, then jerked as several bullets penetrated its brain. Francis blew smoke off of his pistol barrel, then leaned over. "Need a hand?" Louis took it and pulled himself up. The group split op to scour the room. Two doors opened up into further rooms, all devoid of any life.

They really struck gold, though, when they found the basement door. Heavy steel construction lent itself to safety from an incessant rush of zombies. Plus, the bright red paint scheme made it easy to notice for people, but bad for zombies-- several field tests by Bill in earlier days had determined the zombies' colorblindness. The four survivors dove for it quicker than a week-sober cocaine addict snorts a free line.

There were no zombies in the basement, but there was a manhole cover. An old cast-iron wood-burning stove squatted in the corner, and an unkempt woodpile adorned the opposite corner. Various cast-iron cooking implements hung on the walls. Francis and Bill set their shoulders to a handy pallet of fiberglass shingles and eventually shoved it over the manhole. Zoey hunted up a stout board and placed it into handy slots on the door frame, preventing the door from being opened. Then the survivors exhaustedly sprawled out on the stone floor and started rummaging through their backpacks. Francis found a couple tins of beans, but the others made him promise not to eat it yet.

Zoey grabbed a cast-iron pot off the walls, poured in some water from her canteen, and dumped a two cans of corn in. She rummaged around in her pack some more, then found some duct-tape to keep the lid partially closed. Bill built a fire in the wood stove, and then they shoved in the pot and waited. They pulled out bottles of liquor-- they'd survived another day! Time to get sloshing drunk.

Soon they were all giggling and hiccuping, red-cheeked and jovial. Francis (naturally), turned into a fool. "Hey, hey Zoey! You want a little one-on, one-on, one-on, _one two_ _three_ one-on-three actshun?" He looked up triumphantly after counting on his fingers. Bill looked at him blearily, then slapped the back of his head with pinpoint accuracy. "Don't be an ass, Phranshish." Zoey laughed once, high up the register, and keeled over, already snoring. One by one they slid into slumber, until only Louis was left conscious. He'd drunk enough to sleep, sure, but he couldn't quite drive the weirdly soft touch of the smoker's claws out of his head. His brain fuzzy and his eyelids drooping, he shelved his problems for later.


	6. Nightmares

While the survivors wait out the night, (as it seemed rather foolish to try to traverse a zombie-infested city during the hours of darkness), other stories unfold in the moon's light.

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_Rain began to hiss gently down outside the survivor's building somewhere after midnight. Nobody woke-- even after the rain began to pour, then hammer down, the survivors slumbered, safe in their basement. Outside, visibility was down to about five feet, and a figure wafted through it all, untouched by the rain and wind. _Mmm-hmm hmm-mm mm mmm! What a beautiful night. The rain turns everything pleasantly squashy._ It turned into the building, producing a beautiful pump-action 8-gauge from nowhere and placing it against the wall opposite the red door. It was dry, and fully loaded. _I do hope they stop jabbering on now. All that complaining!_ Then it drifted back down the hallway and out into the rain, vanishing from view. _

Elsewhere in the city, a soaking wet man in a ragged t-shirt and jeans ran as only one fueled by terror can run. He'd discovered several of the red doors dotting the cityscape, and knew if that he could find another, he could escape for another day. _ANNNNNNNNNNNNNND_ _dodge_ and he jumped to the left, the hunter chasing him pouncing down onto the space he'd just vacated. He gave a swift kick with his boot, the cunningly-designed knife springing out and tearing a great gash in the hunter's stomach. The beast gurgled and clawed feebly at his boots, then died. The man smiled grimly. "If that's what it takes." His voice was oddly muffled by the pelting raindrops, and he remembered he wasn't safe yet. Percival sprinted off the street and began checking doors, windows, anything to get inside without leaving a trail. At least the beasts couldn't smell him as well through this pouring rain.

He found an unlocked door and darted inside, closing the door behind him and leaning against it. He slide to the floor, eyes unfocused, and let the shakes take him. When it was over, he opened his eyes and looked into a room full of shotgun. "Excuse me," he started to say, but the shotgun bores remained implacably centered on his nose. He could make out that someone was holding the gun, but the twin holes in front of his face filled his world.

A gravelly voice, but strangely pitched, echoed from beyond the horizon of the shotgun. "Ye're on 'a _them_?"

"No! Nononono. Not. Not! Not infected," He was quick to reply. The shotgun receded, moving away and down from his face, and the relief would have made him weak at the knees, if he was standing. As luck would have it, he was already laying down, so he settled for almost passing out. His vision cleared to show a pert redheaded woman smoking a cigarette and glaring at him. "What the hell are you doing in my turf? Nobody's come 'round in weeks, all I hear is snarling and weird burps from outside, the guy upstairs keeps on coughing and scratching at the floor-- what the fuck's going on around here, anyway?"

He blinked. She didn't _know_? "Uh...how do I explain this. You ever heard of zombies?" She shook her head. "The living dead?" Another negative. "...Really? Hands punching through dirt, rising from the grave, feasting on human flesh...?" He trailed off, her disdainful expression being a fairly clear answer in itself.

"What, zombies?" She guffawed, "I never heard such a damn fool story as that before. Living dead, my ass. The dead don't come back to life, that's the whole point. You're _done_. You _die_."

His face grew hot. She was mocking him! After all he'd run from-- his fists clenched, and she brought the shotgun up, cool as ice. "Here now. You want to be careful. You are, after all, _my_ guest, and as such I reserve the right to blow a great big bleeding hole in you and clean up the mess. You really don't want to try that road."

He paused, considering, then relaxed. "My apologies." He scraped himself to his feet and squared his shoulders, a ripple of his old formality rising to the surface. "Introductions next, right? My name is Percival Wellington Dunsey the Third, and--" but she was laughing again. She was doubled over, her delighted peals shaking the walls; then he was next to her, drenched hand over her mouth. Her eyes went wide, and he knocked the shotgun from her nerveless fingers.

He growled into her ear, "Listen fast and listen well. _Hell_ is outside. People, ones you thought you knew, loved ones, friends, are gone. They're _gone_, see? But their bodies are still here, and everything that was outside of this room is trying to kill you. Tear you open, drink your blood, eat your brains, and leave the bones for whatever birds are brave enough to find them. God has passed Judgment on the world, and we were found sorely lacking. Everyone, all of _us_, is alone." He didn't actually know whether that bit about Judgment true or not, but he wanted to be sure his point got across.

"They see differently-- you can't hide from them. Some can hear a boot scrape asphalt from a half-mile away. Some can follow scents for _miles_. The only good news is that they're just as flimsy as you or me-- stab them, shoot them, twist off their heads, and they die. I have killed _six hundred_ of those bastards with my hands and my knives. Before that I lost count of the number I've gunned down. They find you, and they keep coming until you leave or die." She couldn't suppress a gasp when he revealed his personal body count, but his hand muffled it. "_Listen to me!_ If you've been hearing weird noises, then you're about to get several uninvited visitors of the demonic sort. We can repel them, but then we've got to find better shelter. This place's walls look pretty th--"

He broke off as the front door shook under a thunderous pounding and scraping of wood. They stared, mouths open, at the hole that appeared, then a fetid stream of bile issued forth from behind the door. It caught both full in the face, dripping downward. He goggled in shock while she dove for the shotgun, rolling to one knee and fluidly raising it to firing position. A horribly fat thing before them moaned, lumbering through the now-broken door.

Percy threw himself backward as the shotgun went off, painfully loud in the enclosed space. The creature in front of them exploded, shaking dust out of the walls and spattering the room red. A horde of zombies outside howled, then began to pour through the broken door, drawn by the irresistible scent of boomer bile. The shotgun spoke again, hurling shattered corpses through the door, and then Percy shoved a bookcase in front of the door. They worked together to shove a couch up against it to bolster it further, then they fell back, adrenaline spent.

"I'm Lucy."

"Nice to meet you." He retched onto the floor, wiping his face and mouth with his waterlogged sleeves and shirt. He turned back to Lucy to find her already cleaned up. She chuckled at his puzzled expression, then brought a towel out from behind her and tossed it at him. "So, better shelter. A sound idea, Perce." He rolled his eyes and finished wiping the gunk off of him. "Perce? Couldn't I be Percy, or better yet, Percival?" "...No."

He sighed. "Fine. One hunter dead in the street, one horde dispatched, and one boomer vaporized. It's gonna be a long night." She led him into the kitchen, where they wolfed down tremendous lunchmeat sandwiches and glasses of Coke. "So where we headed, bigshot zombie killer?" Her eyes twinkled as she asked him.

_You are one crazy_-- "You're pretty good with that shotgun yourself, Lucy."

She preened. "Yah, I know."

_Huh._ "We should probably head out while the rain's still pounding, so as to mask our scent and sounds. I think I saw a U-Store-It sign up the street, any of those metal doors oughta work."

She nodded, "Sounds good. Let me get my coat, and the spare pistol." He stared, then she muttered as she went by, "and if you shoot me..." He didn't catch the rest, but he gathered the vengeance wreaked for some friendly fire would be sudden and terrible. So he stood meekly in the kitchen and thought. _Two boot knives two wrist blades and a-- where's my—oh, yes, and one heavy knife at the small of my back. Pistol, pistol, 9mm would work, but any more weight and I'll have to lose something. Like this woman. Nice shotgun, but I'll show her for throwing her weight around! Take my--_ he broke off as her footsteps sounded again.

She came back down the stairs in a dark blue slicker and jeans, wearing boots to match his own. In one hand she held, a pistol, reversed-- this she gave to him, and he racked the slide and popped the magazine, then popped the full clip back and cocked it. She smiled, pleased, and motioned to the back door. He stepped up to it and listened, carefully.


	7. Humanity at its finest

She watched them edge out of the house, into the rain. They were dim against the world, scrunched down by the rain, but they were there! She'd gotten used to the constant hunger and the coughing-- but her tongue seemed possessed of its own volition, and she would watch as it hauled food to her _OH NOOO NO NO NO THEY WERE PEOPLE THEY WERE PEOPLE NOT FOOD NOT FOOD_ and eaten and been full, and everything was alright. Now the smoker was hungry again, and all she could see was food. _NOT FOOD! NOOOOOOO_!

Trembling with exertion, Joanna beat down the craving and just watched. Her claws curled into fists reflexively, clenching around air. Her feet, however, moved her, and she jumped out of the window. The smoker's tough muscles took the twenty foot drop easily, and it _SHE!_ She moved after the red smears that had talked. People. Living people. "Maybe..." _Maybe a way to find out about this nightmare. _With that thought, she screwed down her instincts and dropped a ton of mental sand on them. Now she was ready. She limped off into the rain to try and make a friend.

The blurs stayed to the left, next to the buildings-- she climbed a thoughtlessly-placed drainpipe and resumed pursuit along the ledge. The two blurs stopped and brightened, so she thought they might have gotten out of the rain somehow. She began to climb down the front of the building.

The smoker landed and stalked to a window, preparing to grab the weak one and _NO_ barely curtailed launching her tongue at the only living people she'd seen in weeks. _Whew._ She walked inside and tried to put her hands over her head. She partially succeeded-- her shoulders worked differently. "I--" she croaked, "I-- surrender." Her tongue was itching her like crazy.

Lucy saw the smoker appear from the curtains of rain and scream at them, but she couldn't understand it. Its hands came up and it started coughing, so she raised the shotgun and shouted, "Get down!"

Joanna saw their faces go slack, then the female brought up her weapon and shouted something she couldn't understand. The smoker's tongue burst from her mouth and punched the weapon from the female, then _blam_

and her shoulder jerked and

_blam_ _blam_

she was blown back into the rain, crumpled backwards in the street, coughing wetly and gasping for breath. She managed to let her tongue slide out, stopping it from leaking blood into her windpipe, and heaved a breath. She turned over and began to crawl away, moaning in agony.

Percival stood over the smoker. Likely it didn't even know he was there. The rain thundered in his ears, but he could still hear it coughing. It had attacked them, and was still alive. "Not for long."

The noise made the smoker stiffen. He aimed at its head. Seemed a waste of a bullet, but he had to know it was dead. "End of the line."

She knew he was behind her, and her muscles gave out. She collapsed, bonelessly, and the pistol barked _blam _and

Percy watched the smoker disintegrate. It bothered him that they did that whole turning-to-dust thing; it wasn't right, somehow. Not having a corpse made him feel cheated. Not that he'd tell little old 'Luce' that until the time was right Maybe he'd have to make one. He turned, reloaded absently, and walked back into the U-Store-It, rattling the metal door closed behind him. _Hmm...maybe she'll be grateful._

Joanna opened her eyes and watched the world rotate around her. She felt curious, distant; eventually she realized that this was because she was dead. This didn't seem to matter, much. For some reason, she would only be dead for a few more seconds. She became aware of a pressure, a forcing, and then her gaseous form reintegrated abruptly, and quite painfully. A scream escaped her, then she gasped a breath and began coughing. Dying once had _not_ been fun, but the prospect of dying several times over cemented an idea that had been persistently rapping on some mental door. "...I'm in Hell."

It made perfect sense. So if she was in Hell, chances were that everyone she met was either a demon or the damned. She looked to her right, located the red glows again. An area around them was glowing-- she'd figured out that a corona meant heat was being contained, so they were inside a room of some kind. _Lucky I studied neuroscience and vision processing for a semester._ She climbed the building next to the metal door and settled in to wait. Her senses were on hyper alert, but she was strangely relaxed, patient. _Biding my time..._

Time went by. Eventually, the two glows came together, then one got up and moved quickly to the door. The other joined it, and the glows melted together for quite some time. Occasionally redly glowing spots would fly out of the glows. She dropped several levels of a fire escape to investigate. Every time a gout of orange appeared, one of the overlapped glows dimmed. Eventually the glows separated again, and one seemed much brighter than the other. The brighter glow pulled up the sliding aluminum door and became a redly glowing male, although the rain dampened his color slightly.

_My turn_ thought the smoker and lashed out with a whipping tongue, pinning his hands to his body and pulling him back and off balance.

Percy had left the U-Store-It with a self-satisfied smile (and minus his wrist-sheathed daggers). That'd teach her to threaten a guy like him. But his smile was abruptly replaced by terror as the tongue encircled him and squeezed. "No!" He shouted, trying to palm his wrist blades and finding them missing. Shouting was a mistake, as it turned out-- the slimy tentacle squeezed harder then and he felt the starflare pain of ribs cracking, and he was dragged backwards to dangle, struggling feebly. _Another smoker?_ He kept trying to draw breath, but the constriction was relentless. He couldn't...quite...reach his boot knives. Black spots appeared at the edges of his vision and crowded in. He remembered the knife sheathed at the small of his back, and went for it. His fumbling fingers wouldn't close around the handle, and it fell through his waistband. A single, choked cry of despair burst out of the remains of his lungs. His oxygen-starved brain offered up one final thought just before his spine broke and he died. _What a way to go. At least I showed that b—__._

The smoker gleefully pulled up its catch and dug in. The rain poured down. Eventually the smoker filled itself, and jumped easily down to wander through Hell, looking for another victim. It pushed through the crowd of infected, slapping down commons that growled or yipped at it. _It wasn't so scary when you were the demon_, Joanna thought. She thought about entering the building the man had come from, but decided that some things even demons didn't need to see.

The sky lightened a fraction, and the rain began to let up. The immense horde of commons began to drift towards the bodies, drawn by the scent. She knew them, instinctively, as brothers and sisters, but also that all of them would fight at the drop of a claw or the scent of fresh blood. They were mindless, responding only to violence and death and light. Heartsick, she watched them beat and slash at each other, heedless of the damage, trying to get to the food. Whatever had swept over the city had taken a terrible toll—sometimes she envied the commons for their ignorance of the nightmare world around them.

Joanna climbed back up a handy drainpipe-- she was incredibly strong, now, and climbing was a breeze-- and stood on the roof, watching the world lighten. The clouds had disappeared, leaving hints of stars and the glow of the sun coming 'round the horizon. Below her, commons scurried for shelter from the burning rays of the sun. She knew it would hurt, but it had been weeks since she'd seen a sunrise. _At least there's something wonderful left in this godsforsaken world_. At first she was nervous that the clouds would block it, but then they split and the glorious sun rose over the concrete horizon. Her eyes immediately watered, but she basked in the wonder of an infrared sunrise. Then she scuttled for the shadow of the building next to her and sighed with relief. The clouds closed back in, swallowing up the light of the sun and leaving the sky bleak and gray again. Dazzled, she coughed again, irritated by the thing that had taken possession of her tongue. Something landed next to her with a thump. She cleared the rest of the light dazzle from her eyes and peered at the newcomer.

It was a squat, powerful-looking figure, dressed in street clothes and a hood thrown back. Its lips were pulled up in a grimace, revealing needle-pointed teeth. The sun peeked through the clouds for a moment and it cringed, pulling the hood up and casting its face in darkness. Then it spoke. "Sziszterr, come. Prey..." Without waiting for a response, the hunter crouched and leaped down to the street, crossing in two powerful bounds and fetching up against the shadowed building opposite. The smoker followed, dropping five stories with no trouble and limp-hopping across the street as fast as it could. Once she was cloaked in shadow again, she could make out the heat signature of four humans in a basement. The hunter peered out from under its concealing hood and commanded, "Follow, yesz…" Joanna agreed wholeheartedly. She'd found purpose. If she could have the chance to bring down more demons, maybe she wouldn't have to go insane in this horrible body. Maybe it could be useful.


	8. Second Day

Bill woke first, having only slept lightly; he couldn't tell what time it was in the basement, but his soldier's senses told him that he'd slept for long enough to be rested. He flicked on his flashlight, flashing it quickly around the dark room and only finding his sleeping friends. He heaved a sigh of relief. "Made it through the night again."

He moved quietly around the room, gently shaking the other survivors to wakefulness. Francis stretched, yawning, and everyone recoiled. "Dude! We have _got_ to find you some toothpaste," Louis grumped. Everyone casually sniffed themselves and blanched. They'd been spat on by boomers, attacked by stinking infected, and pinned by hunters, none of which had had a bath in weeks. Nobody smelled like a flower meadow. Zoey looked over at Bill. "Can we maybe find new clothes today?"

He was against it immediately. "Negative. Shelter first, comfort second. Will having smelly clothes kill you?"

"Well, no..."

"Alright then. Form up. Today we try to find some shelter with constancy. Anything with thick walls and few windows will do. Optional points of merit," and here he ticked them off on his fingers, "Running water, _metal_ doors, and possibly electricity. See if one of you youngsters can rustle up some Internet or phones, try to check on the outside world. But _first_," his voice turning into brushed steel, "We find a safe. Place. To. Hide. Not somewhere we have to run from the next morning, like here."

The survivors nodded. Francis had wandered over to the door and frozen in shock. Louis nudged him. "You ok?"

"Y-yeah. That's..." his voice breathy with awe, "A Remington single-bore pump-action shotgun, eight round clip, walnut stock. Thirty-eight inches from barrel tip to shoulder harness. It is a _beautiful _weapon, and I would gladly give my pistol to Bill in order to wield it. Hell, I'd give my left arm just to_ hold _it._"_

The others had never heard a speech of this length (or this upbeat) from Francis, and were quite naturally astounded. They traded glances behind him (he never noticed), then silently agreed. Bill voiced their accord. "No need for surgery; it's yours. But toss the pistol over first, and check the passageway for infected before we leave this room."

Francis popped the wood out of the retaining grooves and slid the door open. No sounds issued from the dark corridor beyond, so he leaped out and snatched up the shotgun like it would disappear. When it didn't, he turned to Bill and handed over his pistol, butt first. "Fully loaded, too. It's weird, y'know? Like someone knew what I wanted. Like...God...answered my prayers."

Bill scowled. "Whoever gave you that, Francis... it wasn't God."

Zoey and Louis pushed out the door before the two could erupt into a philosophical argument. Sweeping the corridor, they confirmed that it was still clear of infected. The four emerged cautiously into the bright light of morning, noting that the massive horde of yesterday had vanished into the woodwork. "So, why do they only come out at night?" Francis asked. Everyone shrugged, helpless. "Weird."

Eyes watering, Joanna watched them from her broken window. She could feel the hunter beside her, growling softly. She couldn't tell from here, but the dark one looked familiar. This group didn't look like demons, but that whiplash man hadn't, either. She would have to investigate further.

The four moved out in a diamond formation; Francis now leading with the shotgun, Zoey and Bill covering flanks with pistols, and Louis' Uzi providing ranged fire support. They covered empty streets swiftly and easily, running into precisely zero infected. "You know," Bill remarked, "it is quite strange that no infected are out by day.

Joanna wished she could agree. The sun beat down on her thinly-covered back and head, and the heat was making her pant like a dog. Somehow, though, she didn't quite need to cough so much. That part was a welcome relief. She padded along the rooftops, pacing the survivors. She was turning over the concept of trying to make contact again, specifically _how_ to make contact without being blown into smithereens. Again. _But it's good to hear human voices._

The four survivors kept on taking apparently random zigs and zags down main streets-- something they'd never dare at night, and they reveled in the openness. "Hah-hah! This is great!" Louis shouted at one point. The grumbles and barks that emerged from a parking garage to his left quieted him and reminded the four that they hadn't found shelter yet. They kept moving, talking in soft voices. "Anyone remember that helicopter from two nights ago?" Louis asked, "I think he was trying to tell us to go to the hospital, but we got distracted because of that zombie that jumped me. Want to go there?"

Bill shook his head. "Nah. Probably where it started. Worst place to be in a zombie uprising." The others stared, appalled. "What, you didn't know? Guy comes in with a 'mysterious' bite mark, doctors 'ooh' and 'ahh' and stitch it up, then he bites them, bites the nurses, and panic ensues. I wouldn't be surprised if half..." he trailed off, noticing the others' expressions. "...You kids need to watch more TV."

Zoey giggled, struck by the irony. "They make all those movies, and then it really happens! What a world." The rest of the group chuckled, and then a glimmer of sunlight on metal and a distant humming caught their attention. Soon the metal shimmer resolved into a humvee with three men in urban riot gear. A gatling gun poked its stubby nose over the roof of the vehicle, and the helmeted man behind it looked more like a complicated machine than an emotion-filled human. The light assault vehicle coasted to a stop beside them. The passenger leveled an automatic shotgun, and everyone raised their hands. The mysterious person was brusque. "Infected?" Everyone shook their heads.

As usual, Bill stepped up. "What's it like out there?" When the men had realized the survivors weren't infected, they'd moved their guns away from being directly pointed at the survivors. The one gunning the mounted gun responded as if in a daze. "Bad. Really bad. Gone. Just...nothing." The passenger chipped in, "Oh yeah, it's bad. Collapsed buildings, screaming, panicking people-- you four are the first living people we've seen in over a week. All of the exits from the city are blocked off-- no way out. Jenkins, that's him up there on the gun, happened to get a good look as we drove away from a collapsed bridge. He swore that there was nothing outside the city-- no ground, no sky, just emptiness. He hasn't been the same after that-- he's not right in the head anymore."

Joanna crouched on a roof above them, listening to the conversation. The one on the gun-- he was different. So were the other two, _wrong_ somehow. Like they were more (or less) than they appeared. She concentrated on her senses, then _SNAP_ and she was looking out from his eyes. She jumped, and her head flickered in the corner of her new vision, 'her' eyes snapping around at the motion.

The man in the passenger seat looked concerned. "Jenkins? You alright, man? Everything's cool, Jenkins, it's daytime-- the freaks don't show themselves unless it gets dark." Jenkins changed the angle of his head again, abruptly swinging around to look at the speaker. "Fine. I'm fine."

Joanna was, incredibly, riding Jenkins' nervous system like a tame horse. The feeling was electric, subtly addictive-- she reveled in it. She could see and hear everything he did! But gradually came the feeling that while she was watching him watch the others, something watched _her_. This unnerved her so badly that_ SNAP_ she fled back to her own body and consciousness. Her body relaxed, and she coughed reflexively.

Everyone heard the coughing begin, and knew what it meant. Six guns trained on the opposite rooftop, only relenting when they heard the wheezing and hacking fade into the distance. "Well, I guess that means we've gotta keep looking for shelter," Bill said. "You fellas seen any good places to hole up?"

The men in the humvee looked pensive. "We-ll... we were thinking of trying to find one of the city Water and Power substations-- those things are built like a castle, in case of a blowout. We found one, but it had a mob of zombies in it-- even more than we had ammunition. It also had a couple of big mothers, looked like steroid abusers crossed with gorillas, and there were these screaming things like mexican jumping beans."

"Those hulked-up bastards sound like tanks, and the screaming ones are hunters. We've encountered them-- one at a time." Louis sounded uncertain, but Zoey's eyes gleamed. "Guys, let's talk about this. This place sounds like an epic hideout, like Superman's Fortress of Solitude or the Batcave; it deserves an epic fight scene!" Immediately, everyone looked dubious. "Well, ok, maybe not _too_ epic, I mean, I don't want to die. But I think with some preparation and a hardware store, we could be in serious business."

Francis grumbled, "You read too many comic books as a kid," but Bill was nodding. "What do you have in mind?" Zoey began, hesitantly, "Maybe...if we get some heavy things, and get the tanks to run under them, and... drop the things on them?"

Louis broke in, "That's it? Nice plan, Zoey." She growled back, "Oh yeah? What've you got in mind?" He grinned. "Find me a hardware store, and I'll show you."

They turned back to the men in the humvee. "Uh... could you gents tell us where a hardware store is?" Francis asked. Bill chipped in, "And the location of the Water and Power building, please."

The men in the vehicle shrugged. "Your funeral. There's a Low Improvement Depot up four streets and left at Vine Avenue, you can't miss it. The Water and Power building is farther down the same street, sitting on its own block. Good luck!" The driver revved the idling engine into life, then the three roared off down the road.

"Hardware store, huh? What are you cooking up, Louis?" Bill was intrigued and impressed. "You'll have to wait like everyone else, boss man. This shit's gonna be _special._" The four moved off, down the road. Everyone had a new spring to their step-- they had a direction. Instead of blindly grasping at life, they had a place that could be secured, and another loaded with supplies.

Behind them, the humvee roared around several more corners, getting distance on the survivors. Joanna had changed her pursuit, leaving her hunter brother to follow the original four-- she was confidant she could find him, at least. His awareness sizzled in her mind, a dam holding back an explosive tide. She leaped rooftops and crosscut buildings, following a hunch and the _strangeness_ of the three in the vehicle. It turned a corner and blinked out of existence-- no humvee, no people, no guns. In its place, three hazy figures stood for a moment, half-colored with the dark green of the humvee, half-blended in with the asphalt under them. She saw it, eyes wide, and then the three figures vanished completely. She limped over to a roof access door and pounded on it, splintering the wood and gaining access quickly. Out of the sun, she slumped, standing, against a wall and tried to think.

_What the hell was that?_ Damn, the coughing was back. She shot her tongue just to gain breathing space. _Were those...illusions? But they seemed so... real. _The sizzling fire of the hunter banked itself in her mind, and she knew that he'd settled in somewhere to watch the survivors. Distracted, she didn't notice the trembling figure edge out from a closet in front of her. But her instincts did. As it darted across her path, the smoker let fly and snagged it mid run, reeling in the wailing child and _NO!_ letting it loose. _That was close._ She brought herself back to the issues at hand-- strange disappearing people could wait. "I--" her voice cracked, and she tried again. "I won't hurt you."

The little boy stopped, stunned out of his crying. "Y-you can talk?"

She smiled, completely delighted that she could still communicate. Then she remembered what a smoker smile must look like, and controlled her expression. "Yes. I can talk. I'm a good monster."

The boy grinned uncertainly. "Really? Then maybe you can kill my papa. He's not good at all." She frowned, torn. Find the four again, maybe make contact? Or help this child?


	9. Boundaries

The decision wasn't hard. She knew where the survivors were, could track them with their stalker, the hunter. She wasn't quite up to speed on how she knew where he was, but that knowledge was insistent. "What do you mean, not good?"

The boy mumbled, "if I tell you he'll kill me, he said if I--" and her heart went out to him. She opened her arms to enfold him in a hug, and he backed away quickly, folding himself down into a corner. Oh. Right. Disfigured body, claws-- not exactly huggable. _Ah, me. What sins of man must..._ _Right then._ "Then I will stop him." The boy looked up from the corner he'd been pressing himself into, and whispered, "_please?_" Renewed in purpose herself, she turned into the gloomy rooftop apartment to confront this 'papa'. From behind, she heard, "he's really big," but she didn't really think anything of it. After all, he was only human.

She was wrong. Joanna opened the bedroom door into a wall of muscle. A leering, psychotic grin appeared overhead, tongue hanging grotesquely from his mouth. He reached out a hand, easily encircling her waist between finger and thumb, and brought her struggling form up to his face. _Jesus, he's knocked the roof up to make room for himself! _Great dents in the plaster showed where he'd straightened up, which must have been hard with arms that large. She'd have bet anything that he walked on his knuckles, too. First she tried reason. "Let go of me, oaf. There are survivors to kill!" Her throat itched, and she coughed slightly.

He eyed her. This process took quite some time, and left her with ice in her veins. "...pretty cougher. Can't go outside-- hurts. But you came. Yes..." He turned, exposing the bed, and a figure that had been a woman-- her eyes wide and unseeing, legs and arms spread, and her abdomen a mass of blood. Had he changed mid--. It was horrifying, and Joanna threw up. The smoker's tongue leaped out, stinging the tank's face; he dropped her reflexively, and she shouted "Go!" Ducking and rolling under the tank's open-handed slap, she heard the footfalls behind her. "No! I don't have to be scared any more!" Surprised, she looked through the doorway and saw the child holding a too-large rifle aimed at the tank. The boy stifled a sob and said, "Goodbye, papa."

Then he pulled the trigger. A small amount of blood spurted from the tank's chest, then it looked down and laughed. The boy's eyes got very wide, and he kept pulling the trigger, the recoil sliding him back until he'd fetched up against the wall and the hammer was clicking on empty chambers. The tank's front was covered in blood, but he was still laughing. He stepped over Joanna's prone form, forgetting her to deal with this new assault. He couldn't quite get through the door, and so he enlarged it with a few taps. He stepped through the door and raised a hand to swipe the shaking child.

Joanna thought, _No! This isn't right!_ And shot her tongue again from the floor. It whipped around the tank's ankle and she heaved. It didn't move him much, perhaps four inches, but he punched through the wall instead of the boy's head. "Go!" she commanded, and this time the boy ran for it, dropping the gun and running as fast as he could. She heard the roof door slam, and hoped he'd make it off the roof alright. Awkwardly, she made it to her feet as the tank withdrew its arm from the wall and lumbered around to face her. "Pretty thing sting." It whipped a massive hand at her, and she was thrown into the wall. Another sizable chunk was torn out of the doorway, and the tank became preoccupied with pulling its hand out of the sheet rock.

Her breathing caught, and she realized her hip was broken. She stood/leaned against the wall, waiting for the tickling sensation that let her know her tongue was ready to go again. Then it was too late. The tank grabbed her in both hands, flinging her backwards onto the bed, and she knew what he was about. A shadowed space between his legs became an erect member, huge and shuddering. She shrieked as he climbed onto the bed, utterly unaware of the dead woman beside him, only of his need and the female form below him. The bedsprings popped and tore through the bed-- they couldn't take punishment like this. Several jabbed him in the knees and calves-- he didn't take notice, but she heard the sickening _splortch_ as each spring found a home. "Yes, yes! I will make you _scream_ some more, you will see."

Frantic for escape, Joanna writhed under his tremendous grip, to no avail. He held her firmly down with one hand, and considered her for a moment. Then he slid one massive fingernail across her waistband, tearing it clean through and barely scratching her skin. Blood welled up from the wound, and he chuckled. "Ah, ha ha ha ha. Pretty morsel with pretty blood." He leaned closer, and his musk was overpowering. "I will paint the walls with you. But first..."

He dragged the torn garment from her _NO_ and positioned himself _NO _at her entrance and _NO! s_he shot her tongue not at his face, but his straining member. It punched clean through, the severed penis falling off to dribble blood and precum from each end. _Yes!_ The tank howled in agony, rearing back and grabbing its nether regions. Cold and purposeful, the smoker rolled awkwardly off the bed, hampered by her broken hip, and crawled for the door. Every motion was agony. A timeless second later, her hand fell on the fallen rifle. _The rifle, oh the rifle, in our hands will prove no trifle._ Some book she'd read somewhere-- it didn't matter now.

She used it as a crutch to stand up-- the tank had not moved, permanently affixed (at least until he remembered how to stand up) to the bed by the box springs, and utterly consumed by pain. "Hey!" she shouted, and the tank turned its body to face her, eyes a mask of hate. She drove the rifle through its eye, muscles like steel wire effortlessly forcing the barrel through flesh and bone and back out the other side. The tank froze, then relaxed all over and ponderously fell forward, bent at a terrible angle by the metal stock jutting from its brain and the springs now totally affixed to its shins. After it hit, it lay still, defeated.

Joanna heaved a tremendous sigh of relief, and threw up. The pain in her hip almost made her pass out, but she'd be damned if she didn't get out of here first. This room had seen enough horror. She took a step and fell, crying out. No one came, nothing moved. She dragged herself through the bedroom door, then up the stairs and out the rooftop door. The sunlight was glorious pain against every inch of her body, and it meant she was alive. She laughed at the paradox, but the laughter turned to tears, which turned into sobs.

Eventually, she felt a hand touch her shoulder. "...did he hurt you, too?" It was the boy again. _He didn't run? ...How about that._ "No, it's alright. I took care of him." The boy sagged with relief. "But--" she moved, and gritted her teeth as best she could against the pain. "But I think my hip is broken."

"Well, you have to go to the doctor then. My mommy always took me to the doctor when I hurt. I used to hurt lots here," the boy pointed to his tummy, "but the doctor man made me all better. Told mommy he fixed a lull sir. Uhm..." He squinted, remembering, "I think he said it was 'ree-peat-ed tis-sue dam-age'. I dunno what it means. I just know it didn't hurt after." She smiled unconvincingly from the ground. _Wow, this guy's dad sounds like a raging, sex-obsessed monstrosity even before he turned into a tank._ "Can you-- help me sit up?"

He grabbed hold of her shoulder and helped her roll over. She couldn't suppress a scream, and he jumped, but eventually they got her sitting upright against the wall. The food _BOY!_ squatted next to her, keeping vigil. "Do you have any food?" she asked. He nodded. "Can I have some? I'm terribly hungry." The effort of speaking normally wore at her, tore at her concentration-- the hunger bubbling in her gut had nothing to do with normal appetite, and the boy kept looking tasty. She turned her head to the side and spat out a tongue for momentary relief.

The boy disappeared through the door, and bounded back carrying a bag full of uncooked steaks. _Just what I needed._ He dropped the bag in her lap and said, "How ya gonna cook 'em?" She tore open the bag and devoured a steak, sharp teeth rending flesh from bone and consuming it swiftly. The smoker cracked the bone and slurped the marrow, then she grabbed another steak and repeated the process. After four, the hunger receded, and she looked up to find the boy all the way across the roof. "You're creepy!" he shouted. "I know!" she shouted back. "I'm sorry, it's not on purpose! I'm all...wrong, and I don't know why!" Hearing this, he began to edge back towards her.

"I don't even know your name. You saved me from my papa, and I don't even know who you are."

"I'm Joanna. This..." she indicated her body, with deformed, bubbling face, uneven shoulders, and clawed fingers, "isn't me. I'm just as normal as you, a college student, but one day I woke up and everything was different."

He squatted down beside her again. "Really? What were you like?" She gazed off into the misty distance of recollection.


	10. Memory Lane

Joanna jogged up over the hill, slightly out of breath but exuberant. She'd jogged five straight miles! The trees whispered gently overhead, birds chirped, and she felt absolutely alive. Her light red hair was pulled up in a ponytail to stay out of her face, and her striking emerald eyes searched the path ahead for obstacles. She broke through the last of the thin forest and sped down the hill towards Canchon City College. (The popular joke among the math majors was that they all attended "C Cubed", which she'd always found mildly amusing)

She slowed from a jog to a walk, cooling down, and walked a lap around the track for a breather. She definitely liked the dual woods/city feel of the campus-- it had the comforting sprawl of trees that she'd grown up with, and the night life of the big city. She hopped the three steps up to her dorm's door, swishing inside into the air conditioning. She walked back into her room to find her roommate still asleep. _Hah. Lazybones. _"Taking a shower," she muttered softly, and Karen mumbled something that was muffled by her pillow.

Out of the shower, she wrapped a towel around herself and preened for the mirror. High cheekbones and a perfect nose, willowy curves and long legs. Her genes liked her. "Ahh, sometimes we're blessed!" Then she danced back to her room and let the towel drop, picking fresh clothes out of her closet and sliding into them. _Mmmmm, jeans._

Karen was watching her through slitted eyes. Joanna had noticed her roommate's breathing patterns the second she walked back into the room-- it felt less full of sleep. She'd always been noticing things, little bits of information that other people ignored, but had never really thought much of it. She'd also noticed that Karen's "dates" only ever consisted of women, and that Karen had studiously avoided asking her anything remotely sexual. _Yet._ _I wonder how far I can push her,_ she idly wondered. She finished hooking her bra and adjusted her breasts, bouncing several times to check. She heard Karen groan softly behind her. _Gotcha. Time for the annoyed face._

She spun around abruptly and caught Karen peeking. "Did you say something?" She grinned inwardly as Karen flushed bright red and pulled the covers over her head. Joanna slipped her t-shirt over her head and inspected herself critically, then slipped on sandals and snagged her backpack, heading out the door again. "Later!" She was sure that her roommate would be getting off behind her, but didn't really mind. Total bonus for the attractiveness to either sex.

Her first class was DiffEq-- Differential Equations to the uninitiated or "math-sensitive" folk. She was fairly good at it, but not top of the class. She breezed through the lecture and copied down homework, then legged it over to The Strip to meet some friends for lunch.

Joanna came out of her remembrance haltingly, unwillingly, then the world lost its charm and flavor, sinking into the bleak saga of afternoon in this hellish place. The sun had leaped across the sky, and the boy was still sitting beside her. Her hip didn't hurt quite as much. _Do I heal faster or something?_ She moved experimentally. _Looks like it. Good to know._

The boy stood up and stretched. "Good story! Nice to meet you, Joanna! You're nice." A warmth spread across her features, a pleased sense that took her a second to place-- she was blushing! She remembered her manners and said, "Why thank you, I'm glad you liked it. What's your name?"

"My name's Anton, but everybody calls me Ant. I suppose it's because I'm small." His nose crinkled up as he looked at her. "Can we go somewhere else now? The dark gets scary." She only knew one place with living people, so she guessed she'd have to take him there. She hoped they wouldn't be demons, like the last one. "Sure, Anton. Let's go."

She stood cautiously, gingerly testing her injured leg and finding no pain, then moved around experimentally. "Got anything you want before we go? Only stuff you can carry!" He shook his head. "No, I don't want to go back in there. And I've got a bag up here in case I ever, uh..." Ant trailed off.

"Ever what?"

"Ever ran away from home. I thought about it, y'know. All the time." he seemed to be intensely interested in his shoes, until Joanna realized she was being dense. "Well, you're safe now. I'll protect you, until we can find you real people to be with."

He stepped back quickly, "But I don't want to be with them! I like you!" Her eyes watered, tears threatening to spill forth. She told herself it was the afternoon light irritating her eyes. "I know, honey, I know. But I'm kinda scary lookin', wouldn't you say?"

"...Well....yeah..."

"And you seemed a bit disturbed by the way I ate?"

He nodded, thrown off.

"You wouldn't want to be around people who cooked their food?"

"Maybe."

"Well, I know some good people, like me, who do that!" Her truthfulness kicked in. "Well, they would if they had a stove."

"Ok!" All hesitation forgotten, he practically bounced next to her. "Where do we go?"

She concentrated on the nearly-forgotten burning of the hunter in her mind, and found it. "That way." She led the way to a fire escape, zooming down the metal stairs to distract him from looking in the windows-- she could smell the death. She dropped the twenty feet from the bottom landing to the ground easily, pulling the fire escape rungs down. Anton clambered down behind her, and the two set out into the afternoon, following the faint trail of a hunter and companionship.

The streets were meaningless, gaps from building to building. Along the way, Joanna thought and thought over what to do about the hunter watching the survivors. If she just walked up, he'd leap on the boy. _How do I know that?_

For an instant, she nearly perceived the watchful haze hovering over her shoulder, but then she shook her head and kept thinking. _Distract him. That's the only way. If I can grab his attention somehow-- oh._ She wasn't wearing pants. _Come on, girl! Think like a woman!_ The rough outlines of a plan sketched in her mind, she played "I Spy" with Anton for the rest of the trip.

They neared the Low Improvement Depot, with its big black iron fence circling the parking lot. She could just barely make out several reddish glows moving inside, and knew the hunter was above her. She whispered, "Alright, Ant. Your time to shine. I want you to count to one hundred, then run for the Low Improvement Depot, ok? You need to shout words as you run, otherwise the people inside might think you're a bad person, ok?"

He nodded, then hugged her leg. She stroked his head with the back of her hand, then climbed the drainpipe, shooting her tongue off here for stealth, and leaped into the window. _One. Two. Three. Four..._

The hunter was motionless at a window facing the store, focused completely on the hunt. She'd have to try extra hard to lure him off the scent. She snuck up on him, then whispered, "Hello again," throatily in his ear. Or in where she thought his ear would be, because his hood was up. He didn't look up, intoning, "Sziszter, returrned. Prey gone to ground. Frustration." He whined in the back of his throat-- he didn't like waiting.

"I think I can help with that..." she reached around and trailed one razored claw down the front of his jacket. She dragged at the outer layer, not quite penetrating, and he spun around. _Eighty-one, eighty-two..._ The hunter was on unfamiliar ground-- senses long thought dead were reawakening with the sight of this, this _female_ and her exposed...flower? He shook off the image. He growled again, but this time it was more strident, less whining. He began to circle her, and she moved with him, keeping him in sight. _Gotcha, sucker. Who's the hunter now? _

Her eyes betrayed none of her inward thoughts, but she wasn't so sure about this plan anymore. She heard small footsteps, quick and light, begin making their way across the lot, and saw his head swing up. She reached forward and gently—oh, so gently-- tugged at his groin through his pants. The hunter's attention swung back to her, and he growled again, reaching for her. She backed away quickly, forcing him to follow her away from the window. Circling around, she straightened a bit, cocking her hips to draw the hunter's eyes, and stole a peek at the Low Improvement Depot. Five heat glows registered-- good, Anton had made it. Time to cut this off at the knees.

"Or not! Sorry, brother, incest is off limits!" She assumed a hostile body posture and prayed she wouldn't have to live through another near-rape._ And that his mind's so gone he won't get the joke. _The hunter, surprised, pulled back and surveyed her. "Don't worry, brother, I'll watch over the prey. Go find yourself some dinner." Hating herself for siccing an aroused monster on some unsuspecting thing elsewhere but knowing she had to, she limped over to the window and settled into a watchful pose. The hunter growled, puzzled, and then leaped out of an adjacent window with a roar of frustration, now compounded by the sister's strange behavior. He bounded away, and she heaved a sigh of relief, turning her attention towards the Low Improvement Depot...


End file.
